How to Practice Compassion for Self and Others
Are you curious about how to practice compassion and wondering why you may need to develop compassion in the first place? If so, you’ve come to the right place. The following story beautifully illustrates both the why and how of compassion. Let’s dive right in.
The Law of the Garbage Truck: A Lesson in How to Practice Compassion
One day, I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches!
The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly. So I asked, “Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!” This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call ‘The Law of the Garbage Truck’.
He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it, and sometimes they’ll dump it on you. Don’t take it personally, just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don’t take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.
Moral: Don’t dump your frustration, anger, and disappointment on others. And when others dump their garbage on you, don’t take it personally – they are obviously having a bad day.
Author: David J. Pollay
The Compassion Lesson
This simple story illustrates a profound truth about learning how to practice compassion. When we respond to anger with kindness, to frustration with understanding, we break the cycle of suffering. We refuse to become another garbage truck. This is how to learn compassion in its purest form: by recognizing that those who lash out are often struggling themselves, and choosing empathy over ego. Understanding how to become more compassionate starts with these everyday moments of choice.
What Is Compassion? Understanding One of the Eight Pillars of Joy
Compassion stands as one of the most transformative forces available to us as human beings. According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, compassion is one of the eight pillars of joy that form the foundation of lasting happiness. But what exactly does it mean?
At its core, compassion can be defined as a universal wish to see all sentient beings free from suffering. It goes beyond simple sympathy or pity. True compassion involves recognizing another person’s pain and feeling moved to help alleviate it. In Buddhist spiritual development, compassion is considered essential to awakening and enlightenment.
What makes compassion truly powerful is its universal nature. When you learn how to become more compassionate, you discover that genuine compassion doesn’t depend on whether we like someone or agree with them. It extends to all beings –friends, strangers, and even those we consider enemies. This inclusiveness is what distinguishes compassion from mere affection or favoritism. Learning compassion for self and others creates a foundation for lasting happiness and how to be happy in the truest sense.
The Dalai Lama puts it beautifully: “Too much self-centered thinking is the source of suffering. A compassionate concern for others’ well-being is the source of happiness.” This simple statement captures a profound truth. When we shift our focus from our own problems to the struggles of others, something remarkable happens. Our own suffering diminishes.
The Incredible Benefits of Cultivating Compassion
Understanding how to practice compassion isn’t just about being a better person. It literally transforms your mental and physical health. Research has revealed an impressive array of benefits that come from developing a compassionate attitude toward yourself and others.
The Compassion High
When you perform an act of kindness or compassion, your brain releases a flood of feel-good hormones. This includes endorphins, oxytocin, and dopamine – the same chemicals associated with falling in love or eating your favorite food. Scientists call this phenomenon the “helper’s high,” and it’s not just psychological. These hormones reduce inflammation in your cardiovascular system, potentially protecting you from heart disease.
Reduced Personal Suffering
Here’s something counterintuitive: when you focus on alleviating other people’s suffering, your own suffering decreases. It’s as if our problems shrink when we see them in the context of universal human struggle. This is one of the most practical reasons for learning how to become more compassionate. You’re not just helping others; you’re discovering how to be happy by shifting your focus outward.
Stronger Social Connections
Compassion strengthens the bonds between people. It reminds us that no matter how smart, rich, or powerful we become, we cannot survive alone. We need each other. This recognition creates authentic connections and builds communities where people genuinely care about one another’s well-being.
Longevity and Health
Studies show that compassionate people tend to live longer, healthier lives. The reduction in stress hormones, the boost in positive emotions, and the strengthening of social bonds all contribute to better health outcomes. When you discover how to learn compassion and make it a daily practice, you’re essentially learning how to be happy while adding years to your life. This connection between compassion for self, compassion for others, and overall well-being is scientifically proven.
This Week’s Challenge: Cultivating Compassion in Daily Life and Learning How to Practice Compassion
This week, your challenge is to actively cultivate compassion in your daily interactions. This isn’t about grand gestures or dramatic changes. It’s about small, consistent practices that gradually transform how you relate to yourself and others. When you commit to this challenge, you’re learning how to practice compassion in a practical, sustainable way that builds compassion for self alongside empathy for others.
The goal is simple but profound: develop a genuine concern for the well-being of all beings. This includes your family, friends, colleagues, strangers you pass on the street, and yes, even yourself. Remember, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Compassion for self is the foundation upon which all other compassion is built. How to learn compassion begins with extending that kindness inward first. Let’s start this week’s challenge by exploring how to become more compassionate.
How to Practice Compassion: A Step-by-Step Guide
Learning how to become more compassionate requires intention and practice. Here are specific techniques you can implement immediately to develop this transformative quality. These steps will show you how to learn compassion through daily actions.
Practice Empathy and Perspective-Taking
The first step in how to learn compassion is developing empathy. Make a conscious effort to understand situations from other people’s perspectives. When someone irritates you or acts in ways you don’t understand, pause. Ask yourself: What might they be going through? What experiences shaped their behavior?
Try to understand their backgrounds. Everyone carries invisible burdens, such as grief, trauma, stress, illness, or struggles we know nothing about. The rude cashier might have just received devastating news. The aggressive driver might be rushing to the hospital. We simply don’t know. This uncertainty should inspire curiosity rather than judgment.
Focus on Commonalities
We tend to emphasize differences between people, such as different beliefs, different backgrounds, and different circumstances. But when learning how to practice compassion, focus instead on what connects us. For instance, we all want to be happy. We all want to avoid suffering. We all love people and fear losing them. Moreover, we all experience disappointment, hope, fear, and joy.
These commonalities run deeper than any surface differences. When you see another person, silently acknowledge: “This person, just like me, wants to be happy. This person, just like me, has known pain.” This simple practice builds bridges of understanding.
Look for the Good
Always focus on the good qualities in every person. This can be challenging, especially with people who’ve hurt or annoyed us. But there is always something good to be found. Maybe they’re struggling but still showing up. Perhaps beneath their harsh exterior lies deep pain. Or maybe they’re doing the best they can with the tools they have.
This doesn’t mean ignoring harmful behavior or allowing yourself to be mistreated. It means recognizing the humanity in everyone, even those who act inhumanely.
Help When You Can, Wish Well When You Can’t
If you have the opportunity, help others in tangible ways. Volunteer. Donate. Listen to someone who needs to talk. Offer assistance to someone struggling. These acts of kindness benefit both giver and receiver.
But you can’t always help directly. Sometimes you lack the resources, time, or ability. That’s okay. Research shows that simply wishing someone well has measurable benefits for both the sender and receiver. Send silent well-wishes to people you see. Practice saying: “May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.”
Exercise 1: The Compassion Practice
Do your best to develop compassion through these specific actions:
- Try to understand other people’s perspectives daily
- Focus on commonalities and good qualities in others
- Help people in need when possible
- Wish others well, even when you can’t help directly
Repeat this affirmation throughout your week: “May all sentient beings be happy!” Let this become your mantra. Say it when you wake up, when you see strangers, when someone frustrates you, and before you sleep.
Try a self-compassion meditation practice. Sit quietly and imagine sending warmth and kindness first to yourself, then to loved ones, then to neutral people, then even to difficult people, and finally to all beings everywhere. Open your heart to others who are suffering. Fill it with the genuine desire that all sentient beings be free from suffering. Regular self-compassion meditation helps you develop both compassion for self and compassion for others simultaneously.
Exercise 2: Understanding True Compassion
Compassion is one of humanity’s greatest tools, but it’s often misunderstood. Many people believe that being compassionate means absorbing others’ pain, carrying others’ suffering as if it were their own. This misconception leads to compassion fatigue and burnout.
True compassion doesn’t have to hurt. We can acknowledge someone’s suffering without taking it on. We connect with them on a human level – seeing them, feeling with them, being present for them – without drowning in their pain.
If you experience compassion as draining rather than fulfilling, you must learn to practice it differently. Learn to connect with the other person’s soul, not just their suffering. Recognize their inherent wholeness even in the midst of their struggle.
For those who naturally feel strongly for others, this distinction is crucial. You don’t have to give up this valuable quality. Instead, learn to use it in a way that fulfills rather than depletes you. Compassion should connect you with the core of a person. It helps you understand others and form genuine bonds.
It’s not about pitying people or feeling obligated to fix them. It’s about finding the shared humanity and the universal experience of being human, which inevitably includes ups and downs. Also, it’s about recognizing that we’re not alone on this journey. We’re together.
Self-Compassion: The Foundation of Compassion for Others
Here’s something many people overlook: compassion for self is actually the basis for developing compassion toward others. You cannot give what you don’t have. If you’re harsh, critical, and unforgiving toward yourself, you’ll struggle to offer genuine compassion to others. Learning how to be happy requires first being self-compassionate with your own journey.
Why Self-Compassion Is Difficult
We live in a culture of constant striving. We’re always working toward the next goal, the next achievement, the next milestone. In this process, we’re continually evaluated and judged by others, and especially by ourselves. This makes being self-compassionate extraordinarily difficult.
We hold ourselves to impossible standards. We criticize ourselves for mistakes that we’d easily forgive in others. Moreover, we speak to ourselves in ways we’d never speak to a friend. This harsh inner voice becomes so familiar that we mistake it for motivation or truth.
What Self-Compassion Means
Being self-compassionate means accepting your flaws as part of being human. It means being kind and caring to yourself when you’re in pain, rather than adding self-criticism on top of suffering. It involves recognizing that all people go through similar challenges. You’re not uniquely flawed or broken.
Self-compassion includes reminding yourself that you’re human when you feel inadequate. It means understanding and accepting your anguish when you’re feeling down, rather than judging yourself for having difficult emotions.
How to Develop Self-Compassion
Learning how to be happy requires developing compassion for self. Here’s how to start:
Speak to yourself like you’d speak to a dear friend. When you make a mistake, respond with kindness rather than criticism. Say: “This is really hard right now. It makes sense that I’m struggling. What do I need?” This self-compassionate approach transforms your inner dialogue.
Practice self-compassion meditation regularly. This ancient practice trains your mind to extend the same warmth and care toward yourself that you’d offer to others. Sit quietly and place your hand over your heart. Feel the warmth of your own touch. Silently say: “May I be kind to myself. May I accept myself as I am. May I be patient with my journey.” Daily self-compassion meditation builds resilience and inner peace.
Recognize common humanity. When you feel inadequate or like you’re failing, remember that everyone struggles. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone feels overwhelmed sometimes. Your struggles don’t make you defective; they make you human. Being self-compassionate means accepting this truth.
Treat self-care as essential, not selfish. You wouldn’t criticize a phone for needing to recharge. Why criticize yourself for needing rest, support, or help? Taking care of yourself enables you to show up more fully for others. This is compassion for self in action: honoring your needs without guilt.
Moving Forward: Integrating Compassion Into Your Life
Learning how to practice compassion, how to learn compassion, and how to become more compassionate is a lifelong journey, not a destination. Some days will be easier than others. There will be moments when compassion flows naturally and moments when it feels impossible.
That’s perfectly okay. Be self-compassionate about your compassion practice. Notice when you’re being judgmental or harsh, and gently redirect yourself. Each moment offers a new opportunity to choose kindness over criticism, understanding over judgment, and connection over separation.
Remember the taxi driver and the Law of the Garbage Truck. When others dump their frustration on you, you have a choice. You can take it personally, react angrily, and continue the cycle of suffering. Or you can smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. This choice, repeated thousands of times throughout your life, shapes who you become.
Compassion isn’t weakness. It’s not naive optimism or ignoring reality. It’s recognizing reality clearly (that all beings suffer, that we’re all connected, that kindness matters) and choosing to respond with wisdom and care.
As you move through this week and beyond, practice opening your heart. Let yourself feel moved by others’ struggles. Offer help when you can. Wish people well. Focus on your shared humanity. And most importantly, extend that same compassion to yourself.
When you cultivate compassion for self and others, when you make self-compassion meditation and daily practices part of your routine, you’re not just becoming a better person. You’re learning how to be happy in the deepest, most sustainable way possible. You’re building a life of connection, meaning, and joy; both for yourself and for everyone whose life you touch. Self-compassion meditation, practiced consistently, becomes a powerful tool for transformation.
We’ve Got Your Back
If you’re looking for structured support in developing compassion and other positive psychology practices, our positive psychology coaching can provide personalized guidance tailored to your unique needs and goals. We work with individuals ready to transform their relationship with themselves and others through evidence-based techniques.
Repeat: May all sentient beings be happy. May all sentient beings be free from suffering. May you be happy. And may you be free from suffering. Starting with you, right now, in this very moment.
Resources
The information in this article is grounded in scientific research. If you’re interested in specific studies, feel free to reach out to us.
For daily doses of joy, positivity, inspiration, and motivation, be sure to follow us on Instagram.
Za naše bralce v Sloveniji
Če vas zanima več o psihoterapiji in iskanju trajne sreče, preberite naslednje članke: Psihoterapija Obala, 5 ključev do trajne sreče in notranjega miru, Najboljši psihoterapevti v Sloveniji: Kako se hitro spopasti s stresom, Psiholog v Kopru: Kako odpraviti težave s psihoterapijo in RTT terapijo, in Psihoterapija Online: Prednosti in učinkovitost terapije na daljavo.
